Advice From Ants

The grass is green here

In this field

With no leaves

It makes a cushion and bed

It’s a forest to the ants

And the grass to them,

Are trees

In it they are lost or living

In the forever maze

I’m sure we can take some wisdom

From the ants

Who work hard and carry

More than they weigh

I’m sure they don’t even

Know I’m here

In my own forest

The Town, The Fire

The mountain is on fire

And the burning horse

Is running across the hills

Spreading chaos wherever it goes

A man twists his boot on a cigarette

He looks at the mountain

And spits in the street

Smoke covers the town

People run to their houses

And flowers retreat back

Into their buds

Men and women suddenly strangers

Fend for themselves,

Kicking, Screaming

Trapped like a fox

The town is on fire

And there is no escape

And you have left me

For good.

All that remains is ash

With time only

Can it one day vanish.

The Wind

I was always scared of the wind

It throws me off balance, is loud

And never quit

I’m mostly afraid

That I’ll become light

And that it could carry me off,

Like a balloon

I’d be detached from the earth

Floating slowly up, up

Watching everything become small

Watching to see how far I’ll fall

When I’m…

DROPPED

Just like in my dreams.

Old Man

The old man sits in his chair

Waiting for what’s next

Waiting for death

The young man seeks his wisdom

And the old man tries

But it is a language

The young man doesn’t speak

The apple tree still

Stands in the forest

Where a farm used to be

Evidence of a way of life gone by

And it bears no fruit

One Spot in Particular

Mostly I miss

Sitting at my kitchen table

One spot in particular

From there I could

Wait for anybody

To come home

Or watch my mom

Make us dinner

I went far away from

That spot, that window, that chair

But sometimes I can close my eyes

And be there

Remember

Late night walks

And moving slow

I’ve never been gone

For so long

Hearing a familiar voice

That turns me to stone

I’ve never missed you

Or felt so alone

I am anxious

Deep in my bones

And I remember your joy

I miss your song

And I’ll come crawling back

Once I’ve reaped what I’ve sown

Keep your eyes on the horizon

Because I’m coming home

Wounded

You came to me in a dream
Finally, after all these years

It was strange
And all I remember is you saying
"If it isn't my best friend!"
Followed by my name
As if nothing had happened

I shook my head in disgust
And dodged your embrace

You were my best friend
And the one I loved most
For a time
And being with you
Was like walking on air

But the wound you inflicted
Was deep
And all our promises were forgotten
As we grew older

Maybe I'll pass you one day
On the street of some city
Neither of us expected
Each other to be in

We'll look at each other in recognition
Shift our gaze
And walk away forever

All those years we spent together
Growing up
And becoming who we are
Passing between us like a mist

Workload

The work felt good

In his arms and legs

And pumping through his heart

And for a moment

He wasn’t running from it

But feeling it all

Memory dripped down

His arms and back

In the form of sweat

And the pain of it

Was dulled

By the ache in his muscles

So he let emotion

Flow through him like air

For a moment he could see his life

Like he wasn’t living it

But reading it

In a fine piece of literature

Everyone just a character

And himself the protagonist

He saw his actions

And all his flawed motivations

In the midst of the jungle

Of life, he couldn’t see them

But now he could

And he realized

In his old age

He was weaving something

Beautiful.

Time Capsule

Laying there with you

Asleep but awake

Talking about nothing

Like the things we would

Put in a time capsule

And fly to mars

I can see myself

In a faint picture

Of my future

Settling down with you

I could build us a house

And you could fold my clothes

But we never seem to be in the same place

And I’m always leaving

And you’re always staying

I wish I could lie

In this twin bed with you forever

And I wish we could

Put that picture you want

Of a happy family

In our time capsule to mars

And I wish it could be ours.

Third Person View

I climb mountains
To see a third person view
of the world

All those twinkling lights below
All those feats of man

And the stars

All those celestial beings
Indifferent on us

I think of all those people
Sitting in their homes
Scrolling through facebook
Thinking of tomorrow

All those people
Driving in their cars
Thinking they're going somewhere

While the earth spins
And our planet remains indifferent

The Street

"I don't get this close to the pavement
often enough"
I told my friend
Longboarding
Passing 10th and Garrison

Smelling the dust from the
Street sweeper.
Inhaling it.
Making my mouth dry
Inducing
An apocalyptic fog

He was always riskier than me
Speeding ahead of me
On the downhills

But I always beat him
On the uphills
And the long stretch
Home.

The First to Think

Late night Talks about
Being enlightened
About our generation
Who changes it all
About everything crashing
Down around us
Like we haven't been operating
On the edge of chaos
Like most governments
For all these years

Late night talks about God
About oblivion
About our motivations for
Our actions and
How they effect others

Late night talks about
Starting, quitting, ending
Learning, building, working
And talking
Like we were the first
To think what we have thought

Itchy

Who was I?

I remember wanting clothes to fit

Not just fit me

Like my cousin’s uncomfortable hand-me-downs

But be made for me

Like a fine-tailored suit

But I wouldn’t want a suit

Because that meant

A piano recital

Or a funeral

I remember things itchy and uncomfortable

Like the fifth grade

Where I could never enjoy the morning

Ever again

And where there were no windows.

Happiness

Middle of the day

Which was planned

Sun in the very middle of the sky’s

Blue canvas

You, me, I’m with the one I love most

Hike slowly down, down

With conversations and anticipation

The waterfall, the pool of water

Like a painting you want to jump into

I ripped through the paper, I dive and swim

In crystal clear blue heaven

And who knew- you jumped in too

And we stand together in the heavy waterfall

I couldn’t see any clearer

Aspirations

He looked at his hands. They were as pruned as his grandma’s skin. He dried them off with a dish towel on the upper left hand towel knob. He bobbed his head and did a little dance to the folk music playing out of his iPod. He loved to listen to music while doing dishes. He tapped his feet while doing a little jig over to his pack of cigarettes on the microwave.

He thought, “That’s one good thing about doing dishes, I can dance all I want.”

Robby looked inside his pack of Marlboro Reds. One and one half cigarettes left. His face dropped a little. He grabbed the half cigarette out of the pack, and put it in his mouth. He danced his way out the back door. While standing on the back porch he took out his lighter, and watched as the flint connected with the butane, evaporating sparks into flame. He lit the cigarette, taking a harsh drag. The sun was just going down and the warm lighting felt perfect. Robby heard someone coming through the kitchen to the back door. When the back door opened he realized it was his boss, Andy.

“Hey Robby.”

“Hey Andy.”

“Got a light?”

“Yeah, here.”

Robby handed Andy his lighter. They stood in silence for a moment. Robby was getting down to the butt of his cigarette. He flicked it away.

Robby reached for the door.

“Well, better get back at it.”

“Wait, hold on a minute Robby.”

Robby backed up and saw his boss looking at him. Andy towered over him at six foot-two.

“I was thinking, and I know we’ve talked about this before, but you really do a great job back here, and we really need someone else to work out front.”

Robby looked down at his shoes.

“I know you like your job doing dishes, but we really need someone working out there. You could be making double as a waiter. I don’t want to pressure you, and you know you can wash dishes here for the rest of your life as far as I’m concerned. I just want you to know that the option is always open.”

“Thanks Andy, I, uh, really do appreciate it. It’s just I really do like working back here.”

Andy shook his head, and walking back in the door said, “Let me know if you change your mind!”

When Robby came back inside there were a fresh pile of dishes stacked next to the sink. He wasn’t sad or disheartened. Before he walked out onto the porch, he was thinking of last summer. And the day spent around the lake with his summer sweetheart. He played his music a little louder, then became lost in thought while he worked; just how he liked to.

Ghost

The plastic halls glow with glossy sheen

And I reach to touch my locker safe

But my hand slips right through

It’s not even my locker.

The grey hazy figures

Rush back and forth in these reflecting halls

When I realize for the first time

That I don’t exist.

Wait no, I do, I remember

While someone catches my eye

I reach my hand up to wave hi

I don’t know them.

I realize her hollow gaze stares over my shoulder

I observe but never participate

People walk through me, and I through them

In the murky fog of these halls.

Eustace

Eustace walked into school head down, hood up, eyes half open. A hint of red circled his eyes. No time to go to his locker, must go straight to gym class. He walked into the gymnasium and threw his tattered backpack under the bleachers. He fell like a sack into a chair against the wall right when the bell rang.

Eustace was in a well-earned half-asleep stupor. This was his third night of only getting six hours of sleep. He didn’t have time to make coffee this morning. He only had a bowl of cereal and a cigarette on the way to school. He could feel the beginnings of a headache at his temples.

“If you’re not participating in gym see me, everyone else, go change,” said the gym teacher.

That teacher looked so healthy and full of energy. It was heard in his voice. It sounds like he got a full nine hours of sleep last night and went for a run this morning. He probably had a caring wife that made him eggs benedict for breakfast. He didn’t really drink coffee though. He preferred to live his life drug-free. He sneaked a cup here-and-there and on Saturdays. All of his kids had A’s in elementary school. He had an above ground pool in his back yard. They had families over for dinner on Fridays. They would play board games and drink wine until two bottles were empty. Right after the guests left were the nights he got lucky with the wife. That’s how surprises like little Anna came along.

“Eustace. Eustace!”

His eyes cracked to see the gym teacher standing over him.

“Are you participating today?” the gym teacher asked.

“Naw,” Replied Eustace.

“Then go sit over on the bleachers.”

Eustace groaned internally while getting up. He could see the kids filtering out of the locker room. He closed his eyes and rubbed his face with his hands. The gymnasium turned blurry. His nose started to run and he wiped it with his sleeve. He thought of all the classes he had to sit through today and it brought a headache on full-force.

Eustace squinted. Through his eyes he could see a pretty girl talking in her circle of friends. The blur was still in his eyes from when he rubbed his face, and he found himself unable to stop yawning. When he closed his eyes he could see her clearer. In fact, she was right in front of him. He studied every contour of her face. Every perfection. Every imperfection. He liked the imperfections more, because he was the one that knew them. They are what made her his. Eustace smiled, then she smirked and looked down. Eustace touched her hand ever so softly, and she looked up. He bent down, and softly kissed the tip of her nose. They embraced. He could feel her body press up against his. Her head fit right under Eustace’s chin. He breathed in deep the smell of her hair.

The bell woke him up. 

Monologue: The Grievances of a Grownup

(Sound of baby crying. A teen dad enters, holding a bottle and a bib slung over his shoulder. Crying stops and he slumps down in a chair with a sigh of relief.)

Time didn’t used to exist. Existence itself, when I was little, seemed full grown. Grass was greener, the sky brighter, sleep sweeter, because everything was new. Brand new. The gray curtain of everything being old news is thrown over everyday life with each new experience. I can literally remember my first fishing pole. That purple rod with Looney Toon’s Taz character depicted on the side; an impulse buy by my dad at Walmart.  Growing up is like a burden placed on your back. Not because of responsibility but because of knowledge. Like when you realize for the first time that evil is not so far away. When you grow up you pretend to be drunk to look funny, but then your cousin gets into a drunk driving accident and dies at age nineteen. When your dad tells you that his wallet was stolen out of his car; not in the city where he works, but right in your garage. Life slowly gets scarier and certain habits are adopted to cope with fear, or at least make it less intense. But today I want to sit in my mother’s lap again. I want to volunteer at the local library with her, before I had to go away to kindergarten. To wrestle with my dad after suspensefully awaiting his arrival home from work. Now I’m older, and I need to be someone else’s security, while maybe I still need some myself.

(Baby starts crying again. Dad gets up and walks off stage.)

I Wish I Knew The World Was Grey

I wish I knew the world was grey
The night a turning lantern held by a string
A whisper the ocean
The cry of a moonlit night
The damp streets pounded into the earth,
Suffocating its worn out lungs
The wolf cry of a vagabond
The tear, a pompous shade of black
The capitalists around me laugh
As I fall down on my back
The streets are crawling, crawling
Forever towards me
And I can't escape their neon glow
And they carry, carry me far away
To places I never wished to know

From Rags

Do these clothes, or rags
Make you think
I am enlightened
Or clued into a deeper part of life?

If anything, I want you to know
That I can rip them off,
And still be the same person

If anything, I want you to know
I'm just as lost as you are

I just want you to know
You can run, jump, live please
And learn

But it's not the hat, it's how you wear it
It's not your burden, it's how you bear it.